Macy's Day Parade

Forget it being Thanksgiving Day. In New York City it's Macy's Day. This is the quintessential symbol of the consumer's Mecca where tradition is traded on capitalism's market.

Thanksgiving, the American myth of settler and Indian breaking bread in peace 400 years ago, was officially proclaimed a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. In 1924 this annual American mirth was expanded with entreprenuer Macy creating a parade on Turkey day helping kickstart the shopping season leading up to Christmas. Over the past century, the "sacred" festival season in America has been realigned by commercial interests . Thanksgiving is only an augury for Black Friday--the most profitable American shopping day of every year.

Sharon's parents and my mom and brother, Jonathan, spent Thanksgiving with us. We got up Thanksgiving morning and went down and grabbed the northwest corner of Broadway and 49th street to stand in the 40 degree weather for three plus hours awaiting the Macy's cartoon balloons and clowns galore. We saw the old school Macy's balloons and some new school like "Dora the Explora" and "SpongeBob." Finally at the end, Santa Claus came imploring us to shop Macy's the next day.

We went home and Sharon made an amazing meal with turkey and all the right stuff. And we sat around in our little abode thankful for food and warmth.

The next morning, Margret Buth and I got up quite early and headed down to the local Williamsburgh Walgreens and supported the American cause of shopping. It was COLD. This was the coldest day yet since living in NY. It was 22 degrees in the morning with the trash frozen in place . There's nothing as befuddling as piles of Brooklyn street spew fossilized for a few days in frozen puddles.

Later, we went into town and Sharon found a black Narnia coat for our New York winters and my brother bought us a 14 inch color TV to replace our 4 inch Black and White camping special. That night we went to the Mother of all Macy's...34th Street and entered the madness of Black Friday. Afterwards we ate at the Heartland Brewery and then went to Times Square and saw the new movie about Johnny Cash, "Walk the Line."

The next day I took my brother on a pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium and then back down to the World Trade Center. We ended by coming back to fulfill another family tradition--watching the FSU-Florida football game--on our new 14 inch due to his grand benevolence.

Sunday morning we all went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle for church and got a real blessing with their amazing choir. We then ate at Junior's historic restaraunt in downtown Brooklyn (see http://dinesite.com/info/rstrnt-82989/??&t=0).

We then rushed back to our apartment so my mom and brother could catch a taxi to LaGuardia. And with that we called it a Turkey-stuffed, shopping-packed New York Thanksgiving weekend. God bless us, everyone!

Visiting Ben Franklin's Non-Existent Home

This week was the Society Biblical Literature's annual conference Nov. 18-22. This year SBL was held in Philadelphia. Last year it was in San Antonio and next year it will be in Washington D.C. For a list of future SBL meeting places: http://www.sbl-site.org/Congresses/Congresses_AnnualMeeting.aspx

I like to describe SBL as the Super Bowl or Final Four for Bible scholars. It's the largest gathering of biblical scholars in the world (over 8,000) cram into a city every weekend before Thanksgiving and hash and spew out new, sometimes incredible and sometimes preposterous , but often times tedious theories on how we can better understand the Bible. There are hundreds of lectures given in a plethora of hotel and convention rooms on such diverse subjects as (these lectures were given in Philadelphia this year):

"The Johannine Ego Eimi sayings in Cognitive-Critical Perspective"

or how about...

"From 'Guerrilla Exegesis' to Open with Caution and Beyond: US Black Biblical Ideological Criticism"

this one would have been fun...

"The Edomites are Coming"

or especially...

"A Hard Headed Woman? Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Later Jewish Interpretations "


Anyway, it's a great time to reconnect with friends from all over the world. We stayed at the Penn's View Hotel off of the Delaware River http://www.pennsviewhotel.com/ A nice little intimate place to take in the Liberty Bell City. One night we ate at the City Tavern http://www.citytavern.com/ originally built in 1772. All the American revolutionary heros ate here at some point in the midst of their scheming.

We also visited Ben Franklin's house (though it doesn't exist anymore). Instead they have put up these gigantic metal bars in the shape of where the house use to stand. Also visited the Post Office that Ben use to work at (apparently the first Post Office of the United States). Even ate a philly cheese steak on the side of the road. No, we didn't see the Liberty Bell and similar fare because of lack of time with too many security checkpoints to go through.

The whole reason we were in Philly was for this "Super Bowl bible" conference. Sharon presented a paper on why biblical Hebrew teachers should teach Hebrew as a spoken, living language. We had a standing room audience. Quite fun to see all the curious looks in the crowd. I did a paper on the Sower parable of Jesus. See the blog entitled:"A Synoptic Parable ". We had a big reception for the Jerusalem School (of which we are associate members) on the last day thrown by Brian Becker. See www.js.org for more details about the Jerusalem School. So it was a great time for one and all.

As we returned from Philadelphia to New York by bus we brought along Sharon's parents and Brian Schultz. Brian was flying out for Israel that night and the Buths were joining us for Thanksgiving. My mom, Judy, and brother, Jonathan, flew up from Florida for Thanksgiving. And the next blog is about doing our first Turkey day in New York City.

Night of the Burning Car

Let's see, the week before we went to SBL in Philadelphia, I was not sleeping so well (probably because of stress and other things). Around 3:15am I heard something outside of our bedroom window. I just ignored it since all kinds of things go bump in the night in Brooklyn. Then this annoying car alarm went off. Living in Jerusalem and now in New York, one learns to try and ignore the nightly malfunctioning itinerant car alarm. But this alarm with its horn honking at full throttle would not stop and then I heard the distinct sound of licking flames.

I got up and looked out our "backside". Beyond Mr. Chan's concrete menagerie and the neighbor's rubbish heap, there lies a parking lot (about 100 feet from our window). On this night I witnessed a pretty nice car going up in flames in this parking lot (by the way, the parking lot is in front of our local US post office that has bullet proof pawn shop windows for tellers).

I just kind of stared there for a while in my 3 am stupor like I was watching a movie. It started small and then spread throughout the whole car. The car's horn was going off non-stop and its lights were on full blast, some how triggered by the fire spreading into the engine block. The headlights on the burning car looking right at me were like eerie eyes of a victim beseeching my help.

It was like watching a rooster being swallowed by a snake, fighting for its life with every last ounce of breath cockadooling away. When the fire inhaled the car's battery, it belched out a thirty foot flame sending sparks helter skelter making my eyes blink and my head bob away. With the battery consumed, the honking and lights were quelched, as the snake had fulling subdued its prey. Now only the digestion of the carcas remained.

I started to wake up and realize that when the fire reached the fuel tank it would get pretty nasty. Maybe I should call someone.

In a couple of minutes though, I started to hear the faint sirens of faithful fire trucks off in the distance. Obviously a more alert neighbor had the same idea. Soon two trucks showed up with twenty guys. One guy sprayed it down for 20-30 minutes(?) and the other 19 stood around waiting for the gas tank to blow. It didn't happen. The fire died in the face of the aqua onslaught.

I went a couple of days later and looked at the car up close and personal. Everything was burnt out from the inside but you could still see the "newness" of its former self on the edges. It was dead but the tires still looked new.

I guess someone set it on fire. Maybe some punks doing what punks do best. Maybe the owner wanted to collect the insurance. Maybe spontaneous combustion? My own theory: Just another sacrificial anonymous car in Brooklyn claimed by the neighborhood King Kong.

42 Hour Weekend

Friday the 4th

We picked them up in Chinatown. Julie Kopp took the Fung Wah bus from Boston (it was late). Danny and Eva Kopp took the New Century bus from D.C. (it was early). And so, they all arrived around 9:45pm. In Chinatown.

We walked them up to Canal Street and took a sub to Times Square, the place where it is New Year’s Eve 365 nights a year. We paid homage to the big T-Rex at Toys-R-Us (they were impressed) and watched Israeli toy sellers spin and fly their wares.

We went back to our apartment in Brooklyn and sat up till 2am talking about the glories of Camelot (aka Jerusalem) and the current exile we have all chosen in Babylon (aka United States). Sitting on the floor Bedouin-style around candlelight we welcomed in the shabbat with the fruit of the vine and the grace of friendship.


Saturday the 5th

We had a big breakfast: french toast, eggs, sausage, coffee, and more talk. The whole weekend we were together we never lacked for discussion. Topics never grew dull or questions old.

We then headed up to hipsterville (Greenpoint, Brooklyn) and showed them what was cool. Met up with another fellow exile-Leaf Chang. He took us down to the riverside just north of the Williamsburgh bridge and we gazed at Manhattan. The Twin Towers weren’t there.

We ate green falafel, very similar to Jerusalem Old City falafel. Then we took the sub down to the World Trade Center and looked at the gigantic hole there and the bent iron cross that silently stands guard. We went down to Wall Street saw the golden balled Bull and made it to Battery Park as the sun began to set with the Statue of Liberty sublimely in the distance. Gorgeous.

We raced up to the Eastside to catch a lecture on C.S. Lewis and Narnia. We were late but we got the point. We were surprised to meet Michael Kurland, a recent friend from Israel. We walked the streets with him and discussion continued. Michael left us after Starbucks, and we continued on to a dinner party at Robynne’s 97th Street apartment on the East Side.

At Robynne’s, 20+ people jammed in for good food and talk. Anne Stanfield was there, so along with Robynne, that made seven exiles from the Holy City. Danny led the discussions into politics with a former NSA employee bantering along with him. I gave my two shekels every once in awhile. We stayed almost to 2am. We finally fell asleep around 5 in the morning continuing the discussion.


Sunday the 6th

We stirred before noon. We made it out the door in the direction of Union Square. We met Leaf eating lunch and then walking to Greenwich Village. Danny phoned his Lebanese friend while we hung out in Washington Square Park doing the New York Sunday afternoon thing. We stood by Washington's Arch and listened to a piano and drum duo performing Sir Mix-a-lot’s “Baby got Back” Beethoven style. Different groups throughout the park were performing, whether strumming a guitar or swallowing fire. And we just gazed and talked.

Quick coffee/hot chocolate and we headed for Chinatown one last time. We dropped them off and they were gone. The silence lingered. Sharon and I bought some asparagus, strawberries, and green stuff at a crowded Chinese market. As we returned home to prepare for Monday classes, the warm beautiful New York weekend began to gracefully fade into a brisker, chillier mute week.

Indian Summer

We're having an Indian Summer in New York City. Starting on Sunday, October 30th a nice "heat wave" came in. 60's during the day and low 50's at night. Beautiful sun, clear skies. The weeks before when Chris Bennage and Helen Bosanquet were with us it was cold, dreary and rainy. What a difference.

Sharon's parents were with us last weekend after a little vacation in Greece. Randy and I strolled through Greenwich Village on Sunday getting offered pot by all the local dealers in Washington Square. (What do we look like?!) The Buths are in the States for two months. We'll see them again around Thanksgiving. On Halloween, Sharon threw a "Purim party" for her Esther class with all the members dressing up as characters out of "Esther". It was fun to see her students (and us too) outside of the classroom environment.

We just had Anne Stanfield (Scottish-African friend from Israel) spend the night with us. She came to our Hebrew class at Nyack last night. Monday night we heard Lawrence Schiffman, an expert in Second Temple period and Dead Sea Scrolls, lecture on "Inverting Reality: The Da Vinci Code's Counter History". It was an excellent spanking of "The Da Vinci Code". Anne joined us as well.

This weekend we have Danny, Eva, and Julie Kopp coming for the weekend.

Classes are going well for me. I am stressed with two weeks left to write a paper for the Society of Biblical Literature's annual conference in Philadelphia.

For fun, Sharon and I are finishing up the new Harry Potter novel, The Half-Blood Prince (thank you Christopher Bennage).

Good bye October 2005 in New York City. Hard to believe we've only been in NYC just over two months.